Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1532278
48 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2025 resentatives from Intel and NXP in the semi- conductor space, and an EMS company, Flex- tronics, in the mix this year. We added Palash Vyas, a recent PhD gradu- ate from Auburn University who co-authored the Best Poster in the 2024 Technical Confer- ence. He works in the automotive electronics industry now. We know he has a good connec- tion with academia, and he was excited to be involved. We also have a returning member, Dr. Laura Cohen of Continental, who has valu- able expertise in automotive, aerospace, and energy systems. Have you been receiving a steady flow of papers? Welzel: It is a similar situation to most years: ere is always a period of concern because most contributions tend to come in toward the end of the deadline, but this time, we were very positively surprised. We had anticipated some negative headwinds due to the overall slow- ing economy in several different countries and that it would cause submissions to be low, but we had about 100 abstract submissions, which is very good. Not all of them made it through, which is part of the normal reviewing process. Julia Flynn, Stan, and myself, as well as our IPC colleagues, were positively surprised when we had the final count. Are you doing peer review right now? Welzel: Yes, the ball is now back with the authors of the technical papers and with the IPC office. From my perspective, the pro- cess has been very smooth. I appreciate the collaboration with the TPC members and their quick reactions and adher- ence to the deadlines. It is a well-organized process. I want to specifically thank the IPC staff. Julia Flynn did a great job. is success comes in part from an online tool we are using. It's part of our continu- ous improvement activity. We would like to improve from year to year, not only in terms of technical content but also in organizational structure and processes. I really appreciate the tool's availability and ease of use, and I think that this positive sentiment is shared by the entire TPC. e review process is made easy and stream- lined with drop-down menus, facilitating the review process to be done very efficiently. When do you expect to have the final outline for the technical sessions? Welzel: Our target is to have the proceedings available at the time of the conference rather than 30 days later, which has been typical in previous cycles. Adopting this target has resulted in some compression of the timeline, putting rather short cycles on the different stakeholders. But the goal is to have the pro- ceedings ready at show time because we all agree that it has the highest value for attendees. Rak: Also, the cycle is compressed because IPC APEX EXPO 2025 is a month earlier this